Like the free Ready-to-go Dates guide, I provide date ideas. Unlike the guide, these are more detailed, are delivered directly to your inbox, and also include romance tips.

Curious about Dates by Design? Go check it out. But you’d better hurry, because I’ll be raising the price in a few more weeks.

Making Progress
Though it might not look like it from the outside, putting together both Ready-to-go Dates and Dates by Design have been a lot of work. Before making either one of them available there was a lot of behind-the-scenes hustle. Writing the actual guides, the first emails, putting together the offers, seeing what people wanted, learning new technologies that make it all possible, creating graphics, and so much more.

Neither of the guides have yet grown to their full potential, but they are making progress. Moving in the right direction. It’s just a matter of time and continued effort before they get there. The momentum has begun.

Inspiration
And, just like before this newest project has inspired another one. While Ready-to-go Dates and Dates by Design are growing I am also working on another project. But that’s a post for another day. (Like Wednesday, in fact, so be sure and come back then.)

Until then, check out Dates by Design.

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2. What I Am Building Now
3. What are You Building?

Even though it was not that long ago that I asked that question my answer has already expanded. Even more people have downloaded the Ready-to-go Dates guide since then. Their feedback has helped me to do two things.

Continue the cycle
Though it would be easy to release the guide and be done with it, that would not fulfill its purpose. Ultimately, I want this to be an amazing, free resource that can help anyone who needs it. To do that, it needs to continue growing, improving, and becoming more accessible.

The feedback that I have received has provided me with encouragement to continue, suggestions of ways to improve the guide, tips and ideas that I would have never come up with on my own. Together, we will all make Ready-to-go Dates into everything that it can possibly be.

The next step
Because of the premise upon which Ready-to-go Dates is built – dates that need 20 minutes or less of preparation, and that can be done just about anywhere – it can only be expanded so far. There are many great ideas out there that just require more preparation, have too many options to fit into the one-date-per-page format, or can only be done at a certain time of the year.

Again, based on the feedback that I have received, I am now building what I am thinking of as “Ready-to-go Dates 2.0″. It is going to be the personalized, detailed, ongoing version of Ready-to-go Dates – four emails a month that provide two date ideas and two romance tips.

I am almost done. Or at least done enough.

- whispering - Those who have are on the Ready-to-go Dates list will get first access to the service, and a discounted price. So if you haven’t gotten your free copy of Ready-to-go Dates yet, you might want to go ahead and do so! But don’t tell anyone, that’s a secret! - ends whispering -

I’m so excited that I can barely contain it!

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1. What are You Building?
2. What I Am Tracking
3. The Next Step

Here’s one of the quotes that really stood out to me.

Build things. This starts from day one. If you are reading about how to write, then start writing. If you’re being taught how to interview, they go find some job openings. People dramatically overestimate how much time them must spend learning before they start doing. The answer is exactly ZERO. The moment you start learning is the moment you must start building and testing.

I recently started doing this, as I decided to go ahead and release my newest ebook Ready-to-go Dates before I got it back from my editor. As soon as I did get the edited copy back I updated the link and informed those who already had a copy that it had been updated.

All of this because I want to be building, doing. As much as I want that, though, I seem to have a tendency to spend time learning things instead of doing them. So this time I defaulted toward action, and it paid off. A few hundred people have downloaded Ready-to-go Dates and a number of them have reached out to give me some amazingly useful feedback.

And now it’s up to me to continue the cycle. If I do nothing, the project will die here. However, I am not going to do nothing, I will implement their feedback, test their ideas, and include the best of them in a new version of the Ready-to-go Dates guide. It will continue to grow and improve over time, spreading and helping even more people.

What about you, what are you building?

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Check it out!

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My wife and I love exploring, trying new things, and going new places. Many of our dates feature these activities in some fashion. Because we have been living in the same place for the last few years, however, we have noticed that our dates have fallen into the dinner and a movie rut.

And after years of exploring, dinner and a movie doesn’t always fit the bill. Sometimes we want something more. That might mean a treasure hunt where each clue leads to the next stage of the date or a date that has had details trickled out via a note a day over the course of a week. The only trouble is that figuring out the details those dates takes time. And that takes us back to the original issue: not enough time.

To solve this issue and ensure that my wife and I can focus on each other, we started keeping a list of our favorite date ideas. That way we always had ideas when we needed them.

It occurred to me that we might not be the only ones who fall back on dinner and a movie habit. Finally, I took my list and wrote an easy-to-read guide, Ready-to-go Dates. It ended up having 20 date ideas that take less than 20 minutes of preparation. Though I had more ideas, I only included ones that can be done anywhere.

The final draft is actually at my editor right now, but I was too excited to wait. Following the Cult of Done manifesto I decided to go ahead and make it available now. The edited version will be automatically sent out to those who pick up a copy of the current draft.

You can get yours here. Go and check it out!

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I never let my schooling interfere with my education.
~ Mark Twain

I’m graduating from college in a few weeks as a certified artist. One of the common questions is “are you going to grad school?”

Though I contemplated it for a short while, the answer is an adamant no. Going on to get a master’s degree can be a great thing, and I won’t completely rule it out as a future possibility. However, in addition to being pretty thoroughly tired of school at the moment, I just don’t see where I can join a program that will justify its cost.

While looking at different masters programs I came to realize that what they teach is pretty simple. It doesn’t really matter what the school is, whether the University of Kentucky or Yale, the basic program is the same. Since I was specifically looking at Masters in Fine Arts programs I will use them as an example.

Here are the 6 steps that you have to complete in order to receive an MFA:
1. Create a lot of work
2. and get a lot of feedback on it
3. from all of the other artists you are meeting.
4. While learning where you fit in/relate to art history
5. and contemporary art.
6. Then, to prove that the school has done its job, have a solo show.

Though the schools might disagree (and I’ve had at least a couple of teachers do so), I don’t feel that a school is required to meet those requirements. They aren’t the only repository of information. It doesn’t have to cost tens of thousands of dollars to learn to become an artist. (Or many other things, unless you are looking at a career that requires some sort of licensing to enter the field.)

So I’m not going to work toward a master’s degree at the moment. But that doesn’t mean that I won’t be continuing my education. In fact, I will be branching out, and am likely to be learning more than when I was in school.

If I decide to put that artist certification to use? That spare bedroom can become a studio space, I can go out and meet other artists (more than ever before are accessible, because of the internet) and ask them to give me advice about my work while using the internet and library to look up artists and learn more about their work and how it relates to mine. I can approach galleries to have a solo show, or easily host my own.

Maybe the business minor will be of more interest to me and I’ll expand my reading list to include the Personal MBA book selection and I’ll have the knowledge equivalence of an MBA. 99 books? I can read that in a year, no problem.

Perhaps I’ll do a little of both. Continue creating art and growing as an artist while reading some business books to get a better understanding of how that world works. Maybe I’ll throw in some other topics just for the fun of it.

Either way, I might be done with school, but my education is certainly not over.

Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned.
~ Mark Twain’s Notebook

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And this whole graduation thing begs the most common question of all: “So what do you plan to do?”

Well, the same as I have been doing, without the time-suck of classes and homework. An ever-present goal is to be the best husband that I can, so my wife will continue to be a focus of my life. I will continue working at the same place that I had before, though I was recently promoted (partially because of the upcoming time available). My personal reading list won’t have to be set to the side because of school assignments. I will continue to sketch and write as I have been.

So I guess that the real answer is, continue “living my life.” After all, the 4.5 years that I’ve spent in college were a part of my real life, not some sort of practice. Getting married, living in Ireland with my wife for four months, losing some close family members, and paying cash for my motorcycle were all the real deal. And now, I get to do even more of it.

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What I’m tracking
• Wake time – Between my wife and I’s school and work schedules, our daily routine fluctuates greatly. Out of curiosity I’ve started noting what time I actually wake up each day. There is a strong possibility that I will also start noting what my mood is during the day, as I assume these (combined with my sleep amount) strongly reflect each other.
• How long sleep? – Likely just as important as wake time, I will eventually compare this metric with other items such as how I feel during the day, mood, energy level, etc.
• Did I floss? – A habit that I’m trying to build, and that I’ve noticed is much easier to do when I have this external motivation to do it.
• Active? – I explained this in the previous post. Working up from being fairly sedentary to more active each day.
• Productive? – I have so many projects going on each day that it’s easiest to simply note if I did some worthwhile work each day than anything more specific. The goal is to do something that moves a project forward. Tiny steps consistently done will help me get to my destination.
• Network? – Take at least one action each day to connect with another person. This may be a business, scholarly, or personal connection. It can be a face-to-face meeting or a quick email. Like the productivity goal, a consistent effort in connecting with people will help me grow a strong network over time.
• Write love note for my wife? – Sometimes it is easy to overlook writing a daily love note for my wife, but this daily reminder is helping me to meet that goal.
• Complete school work? – There is always something to be done, even if it’s not due just yet. Why not go ahead and do something, so that it’s not all left till the last minute.
• Read? – I read a lot, but so much of it is online or purely for school. I am making myself read some for personal reasons, whether it is fiction or non-fiction.
• Sketch something? – I will soon be a certified artist. To build on that I am in the process of incorporating art into my daily life on a more regular basis. Like networking and being productive, the goal is to simply work on art in some form each day with the knowledge that a lot of little steps will help me to achieve long-term goals.
• Drink more water than other types of beverage? – I’ve noticed that when I don’t drink enough water I run out of energy fairly quickly. To further complicate matters I’ve noticed that I might drink a lot (coffee, juice, tea, etc) but they aren’t as effective as water. So the goal is to drink more water than anything else. – So far, so good. Consciously being aware of this has helped me to feel better for the last week.

It’s amazing how such big goals can be condensed down into one or two word questions, each of which can be tracked so simply. Those tiny, daily steps make huge progress possible, and far faster than one would expect.

What daily steps can you take toward your goals?

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The basic idea

“What gets measured gets managed.”
This is a principle that I’ve run across in a variety of business books, but that can be applied to most aspects of one’s life. The simple act of actively noticing (measuring) something forces you to be conscious of it. As you grow conscious of the results and inputs that cause them you will automatically change the inputs to help achieve the desired results.

“You don’t want to break the chain.”
Comedian Jerry Seinfeld measures his productivity by getting a big calendar and crossing off each day that he actively writes with a big red X. After a few days he has a chain of X’s, and then his only goal is to not break the chain. As the chain grows longer the motivation to not break it grows stronger.

My current tracking system

My tracking system combines these two ideas in a very easy-to-use, mobile format. I’ve used a piece of grid-lined paper that easily fits into my pocket so that I always have it available. There are 8 columns: one for each day of the week, and one with a list of the 11 tasks/projects that I want to complete/track. For each item I simply check it off once completed, put a dash if I don’t, or write down the information that I want to track. The checks quickly formed a chain that I don’t want to break, encouraging me to keep completing the tasks each day.

What I’m tracking
• Wake time
• How long sleep?
• Did I floss?
• Active?
• Productive?
• Network?
• Write love note for my wife?
• Complete school work?
• Read?
• Sketch something?
• Drink more water than other types of beverage?

Start simply

It would be easy to add a lot of detail to this system, quickly making it cumbersome and something that I wouldn’t actually use on a daily basis. To stop myself from doing this I’ve tried to keep each item to something that can be tracked with a single number or Yes/No answer. Each of these represent a personal goal that I am currently working on, so over time the list will change.

Simple goals
I have become rather sedentary and am working back into a regular exercise routine. Instead of jumping into something that I wouldn’t sustain, though, I have set the goal of simply being active each day. This might mean going and playing a physical game, talking a walk, or working out. This simple goal empowers me to complete it instead of limiting myself to a specific activity, location, or required equipment.

Simple tracking
It takes only a few seconds to note what time I woke up and calculate how long I slept (to the nearest 10 minutes). A yes/no response is very quick to write down. The only further details that I am recording is what action I take to network each day, a few words that mention how I contacted what person. Because it takes so little time and I can always have the paper with me I have made this as easy as possible for myself. Since the answers are so easy I don’t have to remember a lot of details and can record all of them at a single time if I need to.

Simple archiving
A piece of paper folded and stuck in one’s pocket doesn’t last for a terribly long time, but I do want to store the results in order to compare them over time. To do this I have created a spreadsheet that is stored online with the same categories. It takes only a few minutes each week to transfer the information from the paper to digital version, and then I have the entire history available to compare.

Quick improvements

Over the last week I have spent less than a total of twenty minutes and begun to build good habits (flossing daily), become more productive (creating on a new business), and started noticing patterns in my life (sleep and mood).

What would you like to change and improve in your life? You need only a few minutes each day to get there.

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• We don’t have to worry about whether we will have food, but what sounds good for the next meal.
• Perhaps that new job hasn’t worked out, but we still have our smart phones.
• The great concern is if we will find something on television to entertain us tonight.

Those don’t sound like the concerns of a poor person, no matter what the bank account might say. We have food, clean water, and shelter available to us.

Still not convinced?

• Even if we don’t buy anything, we can take an afternoon (or a day!) and spend it shopping and chatting with friends.
• We drive our personal car to the above shopping trip.
• Most likely we stop at a restaurant where, again, there are more food options than we even bother to look at.
• The restaurant has to throw out any extra food at the end of the night, for tax purposes.

We live in amazing times. Life is good, especially when we take a moment to stop and think about it. We are rich.

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